


Take My Hand (And Let Us Fall)

by sequence_fairy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-06-26 09:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 12,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15660672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: A collection of drabbles and things for Voltron. Various pairings, ratings and genres.





	1. 39. “I want to marry you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Fluff. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“Marry me?” 

Keith’s breath catches in his throat and his heart trips over in his chest. He turns, shirt half pulled over his head. Shiro is still lying in bed. 

“Pardon?” Keith stammers. 

“You heard me,” Shiro says, rolling over to grab something and then tossing it at Keith, who catches it on instinct. It’s a box, and Keith fumbles it open. Inside is a band, unobtrusive and made of something deeper black than ebony. Keith takes it out of the box, and holds it up for Shiro to see.

“Shiro, wha–?” 

“Marry me, Keith,” Shiro says, sitting up, blankets pooling around his waist. “Say yes, put the ring on and then come here and kiss me.” 

Keith slides the ring over his finger. It fits perfectly, of course, because Shiro is Shiro, but he still can’t seem to get any words out or do anything with his mouth except open and close it like a dying fish. 

Shiro takes pity on him, and reaches for Keith’s arm to tug him back down to the bed. “You’re ridiculous,” Shiro mutters. 

“ _You’re_  ridiculous,” Keith retorts, and oh, it looks like his mouth does still work. Keith tugs his shirt the rest of the way on, and pushes his hair out of his eyes. The ring catches in his fringe, and wow, that’s … that’s something.

“So, will you or not? A guy could get a complex being kept waiting.” Shiro’s voice is light, and Keith clears his throat. 

“Um,” he says, and then wishes he hadn’t. Good one Keith, he thinks, excellent vocabulary. Shiro waits him out. “Shiro, I–why now?” 

“Because I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you–” Shiro’s forehead comes to rest in the middle of Keith’s back, and the rest is muffled by his shirt– “and you’re going to that fancy party later with Allura and the Blades and I might be a little jealous.” 

“You? Jealous of what?” Keith cranes his head around so he can look at Shiro, who is still burying his face in the middle of Keith’s back. 

“Anyone who gets to look at you in that suit you’re going to be wearing,” Shiro mutters, and Keith splutters out a laugh. Shiro looks up at him, and Keith twists, so he can look him in the face. 

“Sure,” Keith says, “I’ll marry you. One condition though.” Shiro sits up straight. “You wear the dress.” 

“Oh no,” Shiro says, leaning in to cup Keith’s chin in the palm of his hand, skin warm against skin, “you’re the one who looks good in heels.” 

Shiro smothers Keith’s indignation with a kiss. 


	2. 16. “I think I might be falling in love with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance. Fluff. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“I think I might be falling in love with you,” Allura says, softly, “so you have to wake up, because I don’t know how to stop it.” 

Lance sleeps on, undisturbed. The interior of the cell they’d been thrown into is dark, but the indicator lights on their armour light the space enough that Allura can make out the darkening bruise on his temple. She cradles his head in her lap, carding her fingers gently through his hair. 

They’d been ambushed upon landing, and neither of them had been able to do much more than put up a token resistance. Lance had taken the blow to his head early on, and watching his knees buckle as he went down like a felled tree made Allura raise her hands in surrender, fearful that they’d killed him. 

A noise in the corridor outside their cell makes Allura look up. It’s sounds of a scuffle, and the sizzle of blaster fire. She carefully lays Lance down on the floor, and stands, putting herself between him and the door. 

In the center of the cell door, the metal begins to glow, turning white hot before the purple of Shiro’s hand punches through and Allura sags in relief. Shiro tugs the door off it’s hinges and tosses it behind him. It lands with a clang and then Pidge is pushing past Shiro and into the cell. 

“He’s okay,” Allura says, when Pidge stops suddenly, eyes widening at the sight of Lance laid out on the floor, eyes closed. “We were ambushed, he took a blow to the head. He needs a pod.” 

Shiro steps in after Pidge, and Keith and Hunk remain at the door, on guard. Shiro scoops Lance up off the floor, and strides back out to the corridor. 

“We’ve got a little over fifteen dobashes before the sentries are back online,” Keith says, as the group heads down the hall, Allura in the center, directly behind Shiro. 

They make it out and back up to the castleship without further incident. 

Lance wakes up after spending a couple of vargas in a cryopod, no worse for the wear. Allura has been waiting, sitting at one of the stations in the medlab, going through old Altean medical texts. She hears the hiss of the depressurization and turns to watch Lance stumble out of the pod, shaking his head. 

“What happened?” he asks, “how long was I out?”

“We were ambushed, and only a couple of vargas,” Allura answers, handing him a thick towel. Lance rubs the excess cryosolution out of his hair and looks over at Allura when he’s done. 

“You–no, it was a dream,” Lance decides, and Allura’s heart returns to it’s normal rhythm. “Thanks for being here when I woke up,” he says, and he smiles and Allura’s heart skips a beat again. Lance doesn’t seem to notice anything is amiss, and tosses the towel in the laundry chute before heading to the sliding door. “Do you know if there’s any dinner? I’m starved,” he says, before giving her a little wave and walking out. 

Allura leans against the nearest available surface, and then puts her head in her hands. 

She was wrong before, she’s not falling in love with him, she already has. 


	3. “Do it. I dare you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Major Character Death. Angst. Written for a tumblr prompt. 
> 
> (I should not be allowed to re-write this fight anymore, it'll just keep getting worse every time.)

Keith fights with both hands. He always has. He’s never known a weaker side. His blade feels just as good in his right hand as his left, the bayard sits comfortably in both and both his fists carry equal weight when he throws a punch.

This though, this is not something he can defend against. This is not a fight that fists will solve. This is a sneak attack, and Keith is helpless against the onslaught. 

“You’re worthless,” Shiro’s voice says, “Broken, trouble-making, useless, Keith.” 

Keith sucks in a breath. His ribs twinge on his left side. Probably at least one is broken. His right arm throbs, and the shoulder aches. Shiro’s eyes gleam cold crimson and the planetshine from the surface washes his face out to stark angles. 

Shiro raises his arm, plasma blade igniting. Keith barely gets his own blade up in time, and Shiro still pins him, driving him to the ground with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs. 

Shiro leans hard into Keith’s space, and Keith presses back with everything he has, but it’s not going to be enough. Shiro has always outmatched him in sheer bodily strength, and possessed by whatever Haggar has done to him, he seems to be further strengthened. 

“Can’t even put up a proper fight, can you?” Shiro says, derisive. His grin is feral, and Keith knows this is it. There’s only two ways this ends, and both of them are bad. 

“You know I can’t,” Keith says, and he knows he already sounds like he’s given up, but he has nothing left to give.

“I’ll kill you,” Shiro threatens, and Keith nods. He knows. 

“Do it,” he says, “I dare you.” 

Shiro growls, and Keith closes his eyes, de-materializing his bayard. The searing heat of the plasma blade against his throat makes him clench his teeth around the yell struggling up out of his throat, but he will not hurt Shiro, even this Shiro who is not in his right mind. 

The line of heat against his throat disappears and Keith opens his eyes, hoping against hope that Shiro has come back to himself. He hasn’t. He rises over Keith, blade lit and humming. Keith braces for the impact, but there’s nothing that can prepare you for the sensation of a sun being driven through your chest. 

There’s a moment, just as his every nerve is being consumed by the wildfire of agony, where he thinks he sees the violet light go out of Shiro’s eyes and horror steal across his face, but it’s not soon enough. 

Keith gives in to the onrushing oblivion. 


	4. “You’re just… so, so stupid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance. Silliness and fluff. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“You’re just… “ Allura trails off, looking at the paladins ranged before her, but her gaze keeps sliding back to Lance, covered from head to toe in swamp slime. 

“So, so stupid?” Keith fills in helpfully, and Lance sends him a dark look. Pidge snickers, covering it under her hand, while Hunk is fighting down a smile. 

“Aw c’mon guys,” Lance whines, picking at his shirt, pulling the wet fabric away from his skin. He makes a face at the smell, and Pidge dissolves into laughter, which immediately sets everyone else off. Lance harrumphs loudly and stomps off the bridge, his shoes making a wet squelching sound as he goes. 

Later, Allura finds him sprawled out in the lounge, head hanging upside down off the couch, and feet resting on the rear of the seat. 

“Come to gloat, princess?” Lance asks, and Allura shakes her head. 

“No,” she says, and sets down the mug she is carrying in front of Lance on the table. “I brought you a cup of a kind of tea Alteans make when we’ve had a bad day and need some comfort.” 

Lance rights himself on the couch, and reaches for the steaming mug. 

“Careful,” Allura warns, as he brings it to his mouth. “It’s hot.” 

Lance blows over the surface of the translucent amber liquid in the mug. He takes a cautious first sip. “Oh,” he says, eyes coming up to meet Allura’s. “Wow, this is really good.” 

Allura smiles. “I’m glad you like it, Lance.” She moves to sit next to him on the couch. “I’m sorry you fell in the swamp today,” she says. 

“Ah,” Lance says, waving a hand dismissively, “it’s okay. Swamp happens.” He gives her a crooked grin over the rim of the mug in his hands. 


	5. “Anyone could tell from here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance. Fluff + interrupted kisses. Written for a tumblr prompt.

Lance loves the way Allura feels under his hands, the way she arches into him, the way she opens under every kiss, loves the weight of her hair in his hands, and he takes every opportunity to press her into every available alcove to kiss her breathless and make her clutch and grab at his hips and wind her arms around his neck. 

It’s reckless, and he knows he’s playing with fire, but they’ve been lucky for weeks, and Lance is getting bolder and bolder. 

It’s Keith who finally catches them. 

Lance swears into the side of Allura’s neck, but doesn’t step back from where he has her pinned to the wall just outside of the training deck. He’d forgotten that this time of night was when Keith usually arrived to demolish droids until he was worn out enough to sleep through whatever it is that would normally wake him up screaming. 

(He and Lance share a wall, Lance would never say anything, but he’s probably too familiar with the exact sound of the choked-off scream that signals Keith waking up from yet another nightmare. Sometimes, Lance thinks he should ask the other paladin about it, but Keith’s prickly about a lot of things, and Lance supposes he’d be extra prickly about things like this, so he doesn’t.)

Keith doesn’t acknowledge either of them, just breezes by them and continues through to the training deck. Lance is still standing close enough to Allura that he can feel her chest rising and falling with every breath. 

“Lance?” she whispers, and the low husk of her voice reheats the embers that had almost died in his gut. He presses a finger to her lips without looking, listening for the sliding clunk of the training deck door. 

It never comes. 

Eventually, Lance turns around. Keith waits, just in view, leaning against the wall. All the blood in Lance’s body rushes to just below the surface of his skin and he can feel the heat of the blush climbing the back of his neck. 

“So,” Keith says, appearing to find the edge of his Marmora blade intensely interesting. 

Allura steps out from behind Lance, shaking out her dress. 

Lance feels like he’s in a game of high-stakes chicken, and he’s forgotten how to get out of the way of the oncoming freight train. 

The silence stretches until Keith pushes off the wall. Lance curls his hands into fists, prepared for whatever Keith might throw at him. 

“You know,” Keith says, punching his code into the training deck door, “anyone could tell from the other end of the hall what you were doing.” The door slides open, and Keith hovers on the threshold. “Could I give you some advice? The map room is empty this time of night, and it has a couch.” Keith steps through and the door shuts behind him. 

Lance blows out a breath he was holding and Allura reaches for his shoulder. She squeezes gently, and then takes his hand. “C’mon,” she says, leading him down the hall. “You heard him.”


	6. “Time passes slower without you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Bittersweet, Keith in the desert feels. Written for a tumblr prompt.

The desert stretches out in front of him. The setting sun cuts sharp shadows across the sand, and the canyons fill with ink. The heat dies quickly underneath the darkening sky, and Keith shivers in his jacket. Beneath him, the ground is still warm, but the air is growing cool. He brings his hands to his mouth, blowing on his fingers before stuffing them into the pockets of his jacket. 

He’s waiting for the stars. 

Above him, the sky darkens further, and further, as the sun sinks lower and lower beyond the horizon. Behind him, the moon rises. It is a sliver of silver in the night, seemingly so delicate. 

Unerringly, Keith’s gaze strays in the direction of where Pluto waits to rise, still below the horizon. Out there, in the vast dark, is Kerberos. Out there, somewhere, is Shiro. He’s sure of it. Regardless of what the official line is, Keith knows Shiro isn’t dead, he’d be able to tell, he’s certain. 

He shakes his head, dragging his eyes up instead, seeking out the arching line of Ursa Major and then it’s smaller twin, twisting his head so he can pick out Polaris. 

The North Star. 

He remembers when he was little, listening to his dad teach him how to find it, watching him count the stars in the Big Dipper’s handle, and then span his fingers across to the Little Dipper’s very end. 

“All the other stars turn,” his father had said, and Keith had felt the low rumble of his dad’s voice against his back. “The North Star stays constant, it’s always in the same place, and it always points north.” 

Keith had always oriented himself against that star, always seeking that fixed point in the dark. 

On that devastating afternoon, when the word had come down that the Kerberos mission had been lost, he’d come entirely unmoored. He’d felt like a ship at sea in a fog, unable to find the horizon, and with no light to guide him into safe harbour. He’d fled the barracks that night, and climbed until he could see the stars uncluttered by the light pollution on the base. 

He’d looked up, searching for that fixed point, looking for the one star he could always find, no matter what sky he was under. Tears burned against the back of his throat when he found it, shining brightly, as it always did. 

“Shiro,” he’d said, to the dark, “Shiro, come back.” 

Before Shiro had gone, it had seemed like there was never enough time, that they never had the chance to do the things they wanted to do, that Keith never had a chance to say the things he’d wanted to say, and would Shiro have listened? Keith tries not to dwell on it. Now though, now? There is too much time, and not enough to fill it.

Keith had gone to the desert within two months of mission failure, desperate to burn through his grief under the unforgiving heat of the sun and the wild rage of the summer storms. He’d made a place for himself among the prickly plants and the stunted trees. 

Keith shakes off the memory now, and gets to his feet. He’s got to get back to the farmstead, the temperature will be hovering around freezing soon and he has plants to cover if he wants to eat. As he’s packing up, something catches his eye. 

A streak of purple light crosses the sky. Keith tracks it’s trajectory, and watches it hit the ground, near the base. He’s on the hoverbike before he can think, and racing along the desert floor, because that ship, it came from the direction of Polaris, and that means only one thing. 


	7. “I said I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance. Angst. Character Death. Written for a tumblr prompt.

The blast radius is huge. 

Allura watches, heart in her throat, as Lance throws up a hand to ward off the glare. The onrushing light and shockwave envelop him in a flash. 

When the light dies, Lance is crumpled on the planet’s surface. Allura breaks into a run, outstripping the other paladins by a wide margin. She throws herself to her knees beside him.

“Lance!” Allura shakes him, gripping him by the shoulders, feeling her fingers dig into the leather of his jacket. “Lance!” 

His eyes are closed. His face is serene. 

“Lance! Please!” Allura curls over him, hair falling around her shoulders in a curtain of white. She closes her eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. Lance doesn’t respond, he’s quiescent beneath her hands on his chest. “I love you,” she says, softly. “I said it, you win,  _please_.” 

Behind her, there’s a shuffling of feet, as the other paladins turn around, leaving her to her keening grief. 


	8. “Time passes slower without you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance. Fluff. Written for a tumblr prompt.

It’s late; after the ceremony and after the celebration and it’s finally quiet. Allura brushes her hair; long, soothing strokes that she pulls from root to tip, careful not to let the brush snag. She counts off the strokes in her head. The number is approaching 100 before she is disturbed by a knock on her door. 

Allura puts her brush down, and stands, tugging a robe on over her nightgown. “Come,” she says, smoothing her hands down over her hips. She already knows who is at the door. As much as she pretends otherwise to herself, she knows that she was always expecting him to arrive. 

Lance opens the door a crack and peeks around it. “Allura,” he says, and she’ll probably never get over the way he says her name. He was so careful when they first met to make sure that he was pronouncing it correctly, and he has nearly mastered the specific Altean inflection that Allura misses hearing. 

“Lance,” she answers, “are you coming in?” 

Lance steps into her room, and there’s a nervous energy in his every movement. He shuts the door behind him, and Allura smiles at his reflection in the mirror as she picks up her brush again. 

Lance loiters near the door. Allura ignores him in favour of returning to brushing her hair. Eventually, when she looks up again, he’s come in closer, and she hands him the brush. Lance takes it and settles in behind her, drawing the brush down her hair. His strokes are sure and confident, like he’s done this before, and Allura remembers he has many siblings. 

“Do you want me to braid it?” Lance asks, and Allura finds herself nodding. Lance combs his fingers through her hair, separating it into sections, before tightening his grip and braiding it swiftly into a thick rope. Allura passes him a hair tie over her shoulder and Lance secures the braid. 

“Thank you, Lance,” Allura says, feeling the weight of the braid when she turns her head to look at the way her hair has been plaited against her skull. “It’s so pretty. No one’s ever done this for me before.” 

“No one?” Lance asks. 

“No one,” Allura confirms. “I was an only child, and didn’t have many girlfriends when I was younger,” Allura sighs, “and then the war, well, there wasn’t any time for this sort of thing after that.” 

Lance sucks in a breath and then tugs on her braid, before flipping it over her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says, ducking his head so she can’t see his eyes in the mirror. 

“Don’t be,” Allura says, “it’s not your fault.” 

“Still,” Lance hedges. Allura slides down the bench at her mirror, and pats the space beside her. Lance takes a seat next to her, facing away from the mirror and looking out into the rest of her room. 

“You’re here now,” she says, bumping his shoulder with hers.

“Were you waiting for me?” Lance asks into the comfortable silence between them. 

Allura thinks she should lie. “Yes,” she says instead, and she feels Lance’s inhale. 

“How did you know I would come?” Lance’s voice is low, and the cadence of it makes Allura’s stomach swoop. 

“I didn’t,” Allura replies, not trusting herself to dissemble. She turns her head to find Lance watching her. His gaze is nakedly open. “I hoped you would.” 

Lance swallows. A flush rides high on his cheeks, but his smile is a slow burn. “Allura, I–” 

Allura presses a finger to his lips, leaning up to replace it with her own mouth. Lance startles at the kiss before his hands come up to cradle her jaw and slide into her hair. Allura tilts her head, and Lance follows her movement, deepening the kiss, as Allura brings one hand up to the back of his neck and slides the other under his jacket, anchoring herself with a tight grip on his t-shirt. 

Lance pulls away first, but he doesn’t go far, letting his forehead rest against hers for a long moment before sitting back. Allura turns so she’s straddling the bench, and Lance mirrors her movement, his hands settling on her waist. Allura hasn’t let go of her grip on his shirt. She raises her hand to draw her fingers down the side of his face, and then along the line of his jaw. 

A chime sounds quietly in her room, startling them both. “Is it that late already?” Lance asks, and Allura nods. “Do you–I should go, you need your rest.” Lance gets to his feet, stepping awkwardly over the bench. 

Allura grabs his hand. “Don’t go,” she says. Lance stops. He looks down at her. “Stay,” she says, “I… time passes slower without you.” 

“Oh,” Lance says, and he sinks back down to join her on the bench. “Okay. Okay. I’ll stay.” 


	9. "I'll never measure up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith-centric. Sheith if you squint. Mostly an excuse to write Keith and Lance bantering while one of them is nearly dying. Written for a tumblr prompt.

Keith gags, choking on his own blood. He rolls onto his side and spits out a mouthful of it. It hits the floor with a wet sound. He coughs, and then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Keith pushes himself up onto hands and knees, and then forces himself to his feet. 

The sentry waits. It’s unlike the Galra not to hit him when he’s down, but Keith takes the reprieve, as it’s offered. He’s hurting badly, can feel the knifing pain of a rib through his lung and the fuzzing static in his head that signals some kind of head injury. He spits out another mouthful of blood and activates his bayard. The blade materializes in his fist. 

“Come and get me then,” he taunts the sentry, but it turns and walks away, as if sensing there’s very little fight left in him. Keith growls at it’s retreating back and then disengages his bayard, listing to his left until his outstretched arm finds the wall.

He eases himself down, pressing his back against the wall, and tilting his head back. His helmet was lost in the first match up of Keith versus some sentries, and he’s been incommunicado with the team for long enough now (almost an entire quintant since he took off in a pod in the middle of the night on a hunch) that they’re probably looking for him, so all he has to do is just stay alive for as long as that takes. 

He breathes shallowly to try and keep from exacerbating the punctured lung, but it does little to dull the pain. He closes his eyes, telling himself he’ll rest for a just a moment before finding a place to wait for rescue or death, whatever comes first.  

The waiting void of unconsciousness pulls him down without mercy and Keith succumbs. 

Some time later, he’s not sure how long, because time does funny things when you pass out from blood loss, he wakes up to find himself stretched out on the floor of the Red lion, armor peeled off and crude field dressings wrapped around his torso. 

He groans and tries to sit up. 

“Nope,” Lance says, “do not do that.” 

“I’m fine,” Keith says, and scowls when Lance laughs at him. 

“Dude, you are the definition of not fine. Stop trying to get up. If you bleed out before I get you back to the castle and a cryopod, I’ll make your ghost clean the blood out of the floor.” 

Keith runs his tongue along his teeth. His mouth feels tacky and tastes like copper. He settles back onto the floor, staring up at the ceiling above him and feeling the rumbling purr of the lion in his bones. 

“She misses you, you know,” Lance says, off-hand. Keith doesn’t answer. Lance maneuvers around an asteroid and Keith grits his teeth against the pull of the internal inertia dampeners on his body. “Sorry, Keith. Just a little further ‘til we get out of the asteroid field.” The next quick turn makes Keith’s knuckles go white around the hilt of his luxite blade. 

Lance reaches open space and sets the lion on a quick course back to the castle before stepping down out of the chair and coming to sit beside Keith on the floor. Keith looks up at him, and Lance takes off his helmet. 

“You’re stupid as fuck, you know that?” Lance scrubs his hands over his face. 

“I keep trying to measure up to your yardstick,” Keith deadpans, just to make Lance glare at him. It works.

“I’m not the one who runs in half-cocked every chance I get. One of these days, Keith.” Lance sighs. “You know Allura’s going to murder you, right?” 

“Oh, so you’re just keeping me alive long enough to be executed?”

“You better believe it, guanajo.” Lance leans over and pokes at the dressings on Keith’s chest. He seems satisfied with what he sees and he sits back again. Keith follows his movement with his eyes. 

“How’d you find me?” Keith asks, ignoring the lancing pain in his side. It’s worse than it was before he woke up in the Lion. 

“I didn’t,” Lance answers, “Pidge did. She planted trackers on all the pods after the last time you decided to go AWOL.” 

Keith grins. Trust Pidge to trust no one. He hopes he gets to give her shit for it. 

“Hey, don’t talk like that,” Lance says and Keith wonders if he reads minds. “No way man, wouldn’t want to get in there with you, I have enough trouble with this much of you.” 

Keith doesn’t think it’s really that funny, and he turns his head to say so, but in between one breath and the next, the pain ratchets up and Keith looses the thread of his thought. He gasps wetly, surprised at the renewed copper tang on his tongue. He swallows, trying not to gag on the taste of his own blood. 

“You’re gonna be okay, buddy,” Lance says, reaching out to touch Keith’s shoulder as he gets up to check on their flight path. 

Distantly, Keith hears him on the comms, and feels the bank of a turn. He can’t make out the words, but he hears Pidge’s voice and Allura’s, and then Hunk, before Coran takes charge of the conversation. Keith wishes briefly, that Shiro was still with them. He’d like to have heard that voice too.  

His toes have gone numb and his fingers are well on their way. Keith closes his eyes and listens to the hum of the lion beneath him. He feels the bloom of warmth in the back of his mind where the bond with the lions lives. It holds him, tethering him tenuously to consciousness for the rest of the journey.

The bond’s hold over him lets go just as he feels the impact of a landing rattle through the lion’s frame, and Keith thinks that he’s not okay yet, but now that he’s home, he will be, he definitely will be. 


	10. "Why do I love you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance. Written for a tumblr prompt.

****“I just–I don’t understand,” Lance says. He’s slumped against the couch, hands splayed at his sides and head tipped back. “ You could have anyone! Why me? I’m nothing special. Just a boy from Cuba. ”

“Lance!” Allura admonishes. “You are not ‘just’ anything. You are a paladin of Voltron! You fly the Red lion. You are our sharpshooter.” She’s sitting beside him, and she takes one of his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together. “You saved my life,” she says, lifting their joined hands to press a kiss to his knuckles. 

Lance goes red at the press of her lips against his skin, but he doesn’t take his hand away. “Allura,” he says, voice strangled. Allura kisses his knuckles again and then lets their hands fall back to the couch. Lance’s eyes go wide when she leans in. 

“You know,” she says, conversationally, walking her free hand up his arm and across his shoulder until she reaches his neck, and then she takes his chin in her hand, and turns his face towards hers. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were fishing for compliments.” 

Lance’s eyebrows go up. “I’m not! I promise!” 

Allura laughs, softly. “I know, Lance. It’s unlike you to be so unsure of yourself though,” she notes, “is everything okay?” 

Lance sighs. With his jaw in her hand, he can’t turn his head, but he cuts his gaze away from her. “It’s nothing.” 

“Tell me another one,” Allura quips. She doesn’t miss the way Lance’s lips turn up slightly. She drops her hand into her lap. 

“Who’s teaching you Earth slang?” 

“Ah–well, Shiro started, and then Keith helped and then Pidge kicked them both out and, honestly, Lance, I’ve never been so confused in my life. Did I use that one right? It seemed like it, but I’m never sure. Your language is–it can be be complicated.” 

“Yeah,” Lance agrees, “English is hard. I had to learn it at school. I grew up speaking Spanish.” He brightens. “I could teach you some Cuban slang if you want?” 

Allura smiles. “Sure,” she says, letting Lance think he’s distracted her away from the topic at hand. 


	11. "Are you okay?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance. Set after Omega Shield.

She waits until they’re powering the lions down before switching to a private channel. Lance’s face fills the holoscreen to her left. 

“Allura? Are you okay?” 

Allura hates that the helmet’s glare obscures his face. She smiles. “Yeah, sorry, everything’s alright. Must have–” 

“Are you sure?” Lance interrupts. He’s always been better at reading her than she thinks. Allura sighs. 

“I should be asking you that,” she says. 

Lance shrugs, careless. “I’ve never felt better.” 

Allura knows he hasn’t, because her healing wasn’t focused, it was desperate and unrestrained, and she has probably healed hurts he didn’t even know he had. The sight of him, boneless and unmoving in his cockpit had struck her to the core, flayed her open and left her scrambling for enough composure in order to pull together the threads of her power and bring him back. 

“Thanks for saving me,” Lance says, tugging off his helmet. His mouth quirks up in a smile and Allura returns it, unable to help herself. He doesn’t know, she thinks, doesn’t know that when she found him, he was gone, and nearly beyond her (now considerable) reach. 

“You’re welcome,” Allura says, instead of voicing anything else, “I know you’d do the same for me.” 

“Of course,” Lance says, easy and honest. He would, she thinks, if he could, and the thought staggers Allura enough that she rushes through a goodbye and clicks the channel off before Lance can get a good look at her. He doesn’t need to know, she reasons, and she doesn’t have to tell him, and no one else does either. 

Later, Coran corners her in the corridor near her bedroom, handing her a sealed flask. “You pulled a man from behind the veil today, princess, this will help replenish your spirit.” Allura nods, accepting the flask. Coran doesn’t step back, but reaches out to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “I saw his vitals disappear on the monitor,” Coran says, casual, but Allura can see the edge of something else in his searching gaze. “We don’t get to play at being gods, Allura.” 

“I know,” Allura says, fingering the stopper on the flask. The decorative edges bite at her skin. She looks down at her hands, the hands that pressed against Lance’s still form and the hands that drew his life back into his body. She looks up, catching Coran’s eyes. “I couldn’t lose him,” she says, fierce, “I won’t.” 

Coran breaks their shared gaze, and steps back. Weariness settles on his shoulders, and when he looks up at her again, it’s as if the ten thousand years of stasis are finally starting to catch up with him. “May the Ancients bless you and keep you, princess,” he says, and leaves her at her door, his footsteps fading as he walks away. 


	12. “There’s nothing you can do.” & “It hurts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Heads up for Bad End™. Angst. Character Death

“Hurts,” Shiro says, human hand covering the gash in his side. Shiro inhales sharply as Keith pushes him, gently, but firmly to the ground. 

“I know,” Keith says, trying for soothing. His voice comes out in a harsh rasp. Shiro grunts. “You gotta let me have a look at it, Shiro,” Keith says, pulling at Shiro’s hand.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Shiro says, but Keith pulls his hand away anyway. Blood, wet and red, seeps through the rent in the armor and it coats Keith’s fingers as he tries to get a better look at the wound. 

Slowly, Keith works the plates of armor off, but every time his hands get too close, Shiro makes a high, choked off noise of pain, breathing out hard through his nose and Keith feels it like a punch to the gut. Getting the armor off around the wound is not as hard as looking at it once he’s peeled Shiro’s undersuit back. The gash is wide and deep and bleeding freely. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” Keith says, pressing his hand against Shiro’s side. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Shiro says, “please.” 

“I’m not,” Keith protests. He’s not sure if he’s protesting to himself or protesting to Shiro, because it looks really bad. Really, really bad. Keith’s crash course in field medicine has not prepared him for this sort of damage. His mind races, but he doesn’t take his now slick palm off Shiro’s side.  

“Keith?” Shiro’s voice is off, and it makes Keith look up from where he’s staring blankly at the gathering red beneath his fingers. 

“Yeah?” 

“If we–if I don’t–” 

“Shut up, Shiro,” Keith hisses. “Not an option, and you know it. We’ll get out of this. We’ve gotten out of worse.” Keith shifts, increasing the pressure of his hand slightly and Shiro groans, pained. Keith catches his eyes, they’re going glassy and his skin has gone all over ashen. 

As he watches, Keith sees Shiro gathering himself, and when he blinks his gaze clears. “Keith.” Shiro’s tone brooks no argument, and Keith knows what he’s going to say before the words come out of his mouth. 

“Nope,” Keith interrupts, “I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Delusion doesn’t suit you,” Shiro mutters, without heat. 

“I’m not going to give up on you,” Keith says, “I won’t. Don’t ask me to. You can’t ask me for that.” 

“I can’t ask you to sit here and watch me die either,” Shiro retorts, wincing as he tries to settle into a more comfortable position propped against the rock wall. 

“I won’t leave you,” Keith says, reaching up with his other hand to touch Shiro’s face. “Look, I can call Red and she’ll be here in a jiff and we can get you patched up.” 

Shiro shakes his head. “I’ll bleed out before you get me to the lion.” 

“Christ, Shiro, a little optimism wouldn’t hurt.” 

“Never did me any good, always preferred to be pragmatic.” Shiro’s voice trails off into a sigh and his eyes flutter shut. Keith’s stomach sinks. Grief washes through him, premature and all the more deadly with it. His eyes burn behind his own closed eyelids, and his throat clogs. Keith swallows, steels himself and opens his eyes. 

“Hey,” he says, sharp, and Shiro’s eyes open. “Stay with me buddy, you gotta stay with me.” 

“’m cold,” Shiro slurs. 

“Okay,” Keith says, “okay. Lemme just–” Keith shifts, reaching for Shiro’s arm with his free hand and swapping his hand for Shiro’s own. His palm is sticky with drying blood, but Keith wipes it off on the leg of his armor. “Just, hold that there,” he tells Shiro, and Shiro nods. Keith arranges himself on Shiro’s other side, scrambling over the other paladin’s knees to curl close around his side. “You’re gonna be okay,” Keith murmurs, “it’s gonna be okay.” 

—

Pidge finds them there the next day. She ignores the cacophony of noise over her comms as the castleship bridge sees what she’s seeing. 

Shiro has gone still next to Keith, arm dropped from the bloody gash in his side. Keith’s face is buried in Shiro’s neck, and for a horrible, sickening moment, Pidge thinks they’ve lost them both, until she sees Keith’s back, rising and falling with gentle breaths. 


	13. 17) things you said that I wish you hadn’t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One-sided jaith + sheith for you darling. Pre-kerb angst for fun. Written for a tumblr prompt.

“I’ll wait,” Keith says, looking up at Shiro like he hung the moon and James wants to throw up. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be watching this, shouldn’t be seeing this, and yet, here he is, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene unfolding in front of him. 

“No,” Shiro says, and James watches Keith’s world crumble, watches his shoulders curl and his chin start to drop. “Don’t, Keith, c’mon, you–it’s not–it’s not like that?” 

James watches Shiro reach out and then abort mission, drawing his hand up to run through his own hair instead of letting it land on Keith’s shoulder, where James had been sure it was headed. Keith’s head hangs, hair falling to obscure his face, but James is sure his eyes are liquid in that way they go that makes James’ chest feel tight. 

“I’m sorry, Keith,” Shiro says, finally, “you know I have Adam–”

“ _Had_  Adam,” Keith spits, lifting his head. His fists clench at his sides, and James watches as the hit lands. Shiro’s face betrays him for half a moment until he manages to smooth the expression off his face. 

“ _Cadet_ ,” Shiro snaps. Keith stares back at him, defiance written in every taut line of his body. They stare each other down for a long, tense moment. Shiro breaks first, sighing and dragging a hand down his face. “You don’t mean that, you can’t, you’re–you have your whole life ahead of you, Keith. Don’t waste it on me.” 

“It’s not a waste,” Keith says, insistent. James should leave. He should have left ages ago, when he rounded the corner and saw Keith and Shiro standing too close in the hallway, but he didn’t then, and he doesn’t now. Keith steps in closer, and lays his hand on Shiro’s arm. “It’s not a waste. I’ll wait, I promise.” 

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Shiro says. “What if I never come back?”

“Are you planning on getting lost in space, Takashi?” 

“No!” Shiro exclaims. “No, I’m not, but you never know. I don’t want you to miss out on anything here, on earth, while I’m gone.” 

James needs to leave. He ducks back around the wall, counts to three and makes to soft-step away until he’s far enough that he can run like he should have done fifteen minutes ago when he first found them. He takes a deep breath and steps away from the wall, carefully walking back to the T junction and then he runs. 

(After the Kerberos mission is lost, James spends a lot of time wishing he’d never overheard them that day, and when Keith disappears, James spends more time wishing he’d never memorized the way Keith had said Shiro’s name, wondering what it would have been like to hear his own name said so reverently.)


	14. 45) things you said on new year’s eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allurance, post-earth saving, written for a tumblr prompt.

It’s nearly midnight in this timezone, and the night is uncharacteristically warm. Lance thinks it has to do with whatever geoengineering the Galra did to the planet while humanity was besieged, but he tuned out Pidge’s explanation after she started in on climate patterns and remembers nothing else about the lecture. 

The paladins have all been thoroughly wined and dined tonight, and he’s feeling pleasantly fuzzy and warm through to the ends of his fingers. He holds his current glass of champagne loosely in one hand, leaning against a railing on a high balcony, looking out over Plaht City. The rebuilding is going slowly, but Lance can see the progress and it warms him in places that the bubbly can’t reach. 

Lance shifts, leaning forward on the railing, glass dangling out into empty space. It’ll fall, he thinks, if he lets go. He looks down. Heights used to make him dizzy, but now, after everything, he finds himself sighting pickoffs and mentally accommodating for wind speed and gravity. He shakes his head, he’s here to have a good time, not plot escape routes for the team through the rubble. 

Footsteps behind him make his shoulders tense. Lance turns, a request for peace ready but it’s Allura. She’s the only one of them not in dress greys, and Lance had taken the opportunity earlier when she’d arrived to have a long look. Her dress hits the floor and then pools, the fabric is the kind of blue Lance remembers from twilight on the roof of his parent’s house near Veradero, the ocean rolling like a jewel under the darkening sky. Her hair hangs soft and loose around her shoulders, curling like moonlight against her skin. A hush had fallen over the assembled crowd, everyone briefly awed before they’d returned to conversation. 

Shiro had been the first to move, drawing Allura into the circle of the paladins, telling her softly that she looked lovely. Allura had laughed, and complained that she’d spent too much time in those cadet oranges to want to spend another minute in anything but a dress. The night had spun on, dinner and speeches and toast after toast. Lance had watched Allura’s cheeks flush, but once the dancing had started in earnest, he’d escaped out to the balcony. 

The crush of people after so many years in the company of only close friends or the vast emptiness of space had almost been too much. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to crowds again, but that’s a small price to pay for getting to come home, for getting to make it, for surviving. 

“They said the countdown will start soon,” she says, and Lance looks down at his watch. The readout says 23:54. 

“Yeah, they’ll start in about five minutes.” He lifts his glass, letting the champagne rest on his tongue, effervescent. Allura joins him at the railing, looking out. She’s quiet, but Lance watches her brow furrow. 

“Looking for safe routes out of the city?” Lance asks, just enough of a tease in his voice to make Allura’s shoulders hunch before she turns to him. Her eyes are fathomless in the soft dark. “I was looking for extraction points earlier,” he admits, keeping his tone light. 

“Will we ever escape this war?” Allura asks. Lance takes a long pull from his glass, tipping it up to empty out the last of it. He hesitates for a moment, thinking about throwing the glass, thinking about the arc and trajectory of it and the way they would lose the fragments of it in amongst the rest of the rubble, but then he stoops to set it down instead. 

“I don’t know,” he says, honesty husking his voice. “I hope so.” 

Inside, the noise of the party quiets, and Lance cocks an ear, suddenly on edge. He relaxes when he hears the emcee announcing that the favours are set out and reminding folks to pair up for the midnight toast. He relaxes further when Allura sets her hand deliberately on his forearm. 

Lance looks down at her. Allura looks up at him, and Lance thinks he might just tip into her eyes and drown. They are liquid in the dark, deep like the sea at midnight. He reaches for her face, drawing his fingers along the line of her jaw. Allura leans into his touch, bringing her own hand up to mirror his. Her palm is soft, and her skin is warm against his. 

Allura keeps her eyes on him, telegraphing her movements as she leans up, but Lance shifts, pressing his finger to her mouth. “Wait,” he says, “it’s traditional to kiss at midnight.” 

Allura flushes, and Lance resolutely does not think about how soft her lips are before letting his hand fall to her elbow. She drops back down onto flat feet. “How long until midnight?” She asks, and Lance ignores the swoop of heat in his gut to check his watch. 

“A minute? You can wait that long, I’m sure.” 

Behind them, the party noise dies again, and Lance turns to look. A countdown is projected on the wall, large enough that he can read the numbers and he and Allura wait as the final minute ticks down. 

When the crowd inside starts at ten, Lance turns back to Allura, brushing her hair behind her ear. Allura locks their gazes, and Lance knows he couldn’t look away if he tried. The countdown hits five behind them, then four, three, two, one. 

They move at the same time, as fireworks explode behind them. Lance meets her halfway and Allura’s mouth is warm under his. She opens to him, yields under him, and Lance’s hand moves from her elbow to splay against her spine, dipping her back. Allura’s arms go around his neck.

They break apart when a cheer goes up around them. Lance opens his eyes, to find Allura staring back at him. The fireworks make Allura’s eyes dance, and the changing colours soften the contours of her face. Lance can feel each explosion in his sternum, but nothing compares to the thunder of his heart in his chest. 


	15. 54) things you always meant to say but never got the chance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Keith talks to space because he can't talk to Shiro. Written for a tumblr prompt.

Keith settles into the Black Lion, flipping open his comms long enough to let Coran know he’s headed out and then closes everything but the emergency channel. Coran doesn’t ask questions, they have an understanding that he has to do this, he has to find him, has to bring Shiro home. 

He hits open space at speed, breathless exhilaration ringing in his blood. It’ll never not be a fucking thrill to pilot something as responsive as the lion. The ships and planes he flew at the Garrison and even the agile hoverbike pale in comparison to the speed and feather-light control of his giant space cat. 

Keith huffs a laugh to himself at the thought, but it’s the truth. They do fly giant robot lions in space, and together, they make a bigger robot with a shiny sword and lions for hands and feet. Sometimes, Keith hardly believes this is his own life. 

When an alert lights up on his radar screen, Keith hauls on the control arms, dropping out of the lion’s version of FTL as the HUD readout flickers with information, plotting out the search grid Keith has already programmed in. He’s far enough out from the castleship now that he’s out of range by all comms but the emergency beacon and Keith opens a channel out into space, shielding it like Pidge taught them how to do. He lets the lion drive, setting the autopilot to check in after a couple of vargas or if it finds any anomalies in the search grid. 

That done, Keith lets go of the controls, and pulls off his helmet. He shouldn’t, out here, far away from help, but, he thinks to himself as he sets it beside him on the floor, what good was he at following SOP anyway. 

“You’re a hard guy to find,” Keith begins. The lion sweeps through a sector of the grid search, coming up empty. “I never thought I’d be chasing you this far though, only ever thought I’d have to find you hiding in the teacher’s lounge, or out in the drive shed.” Keith looks up at the starfield spread out in front of him. 

There aren’t any planets in this sector, just far away stars, so the lights aren’t bright, but spilled across the inky black of deep space, Keith thinks they’re beautiful. The lion completes another grid, and fires her thrusters, banking hard into the next square. 

“When I get you back,” Keith says, leaning forward to rest his elbow on his thigh and drop his chin into his hand, “I’m going to yell at you. You deserve it you know, disappearing like that. Pidge keeps disappearing into her lab, Allura hasn’t said your name without having to pause for weeks now. Hunk’s been stress baking. He keeps trying to make those gingersnap cookies you said you liked. He’s almost got it, I think, they’re pretty good now that he’s figured out the ratio of spices.” 

Keith’s mouth curves up. “The first batch nearly killed us all. They were so spicy! Lance cried.” Smiles among the paladins have been few and far between lately, and that night in the lounge sticks out as a bright spot in Keith’s short-term memories. “I wish you could have been there,” Keith says, soft and fond.

The lion finishes another sector of the grid and marks it empty on the display in front of Keith. Keith leans back, watching the stars slide by. 


	16. 10) things you said that made me feel like shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Unresolved angst. Shiro has a bad case of foot in mouth disease. Set vaguely post-S7.

“Keith! Keith–seriously, stop!” Shiro’s voice carries across the hangar but Keith’s feet don’t stop moving. He can hear Shiro behind him, gaining on him, but Keith doesn’t turn, just keeps moving. 

The lift whirs as it arrives, and Keith presses his palm against the screen to open the doors. The doors slide open on a whoosh of compressed air and Keith steps inside. He still doesn’t turn. 

“Keith! I swear to God–” Shiro’s voice cuts off as the lift doors close, and Keith slumps back against them. Now that he’s alone, Keith unclenches his fists. His hands ache from the tension. He spreads his fingers, ignoring the way they shake, and then drags one hand through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. 

The stink of fear sweat rolls off him as he lifts his hair off the back of his neck and Keith wrinkles his nose. He needs a shower. 

Shuddering, the lift stops, and Keith steps out into the corridor. He looks both ways, before striding purposefully to his quarters, tapping in his passcode and locking the door behind him. Soft lights come up, tinted blue as Keith strips out his Blade armor, dropping the pieces on the floor in a trail behind him. When he reaches his bathroom, he pauses, looking at himself in the mirror. 

His face is pale and drawn. Keith looks away, reaching up behind his neck to grab at the seam of his pressure suit and releasing the catch so he can peel it off. Dark bruising blooms along revealed skin, and Keith hisses in a breath as he has to twist in order to pull his arms out. 

Once undressed, Keith leans into the shower, turning it on, as hot as he can stand, and steps in. Water sluices over him, the heat sinking into his skin. Keith closes his eyes, leaning forward to press his hands against the wall, cool metal under his palms. 

Behind his eyelids, all he can see is the billowing explosion, all he can hear is the way Lance had yelled his name, and then the arcing light as all the systems in the Black Lion overloaded. Keith’s own scream still echoes in his ears. 

The bathroom door opens with force and Keith is startled out of his memory. Shiro appears in his line of sight, and Keith jerks back, flailing to cover himself. Shiro’s hair is disheveled, like he’s been pulling it but his eyes are steely, the grey piercing through the clouds of mist in the shower. 

“Paladin,” Shiro says, and Keith’s shoulders straighten involuntarily. “I should have you in front of a court martial. You disobeyed a direct order.” 

“You’re not my CO, Captain,” Keith spits. He turns off the water with unnecessary force, pushing past Shiro to grab his towel and tie it firmly around his waist. “Mission debrief isn’t for another hour, did you need something or can I go back to getting changed in peace?” 

“Keith, please,” Shiro’s voice has gone soft, and he reaches out. Keith shrugs out from under Shiro’s hand. 

“Don’t touch me,” Keith says, “just–just go.” 

“You could have been killed!” Shiro exclaims. “Keith, I–” 

“You what, Shiro?” Keith asks, turning to face Shiro. They stare at each other across Keith’s room, the space suddenly claustrophobic. An itch starts between Keith’s shoulder blades. He wants to run.  

“Will you just–” Shiro sighs, explosively, raking his hand through his already messy hair. It does nothing for his style. When he looks up again, Keith gets caught in his gaze. Something naked and vulnerable lives in those grey eyes, and Keith feels the fight go out of him in a rush, leaving him shaky. He feels sick, woozy with the adrenaline crash and it knocks him back, tripping over his feet until he hits the wall, and then sliding down into a heap on the floor. 

Shiro goes down with him, settling on his knees in front of Keith. “Look at me,” Shiro says, when Keith buries his face in the arms crossed over his knees. 

Keith keeps his face hidden. He feels like an exposed nerve, like it would take nothing to set him off. He wishes Shiro would just go. The explosion lights up behind his eyes again, the memory making Keith dig his nails into his own arms. He’s going to be seeing this one in his dreams, the same way he sees the loom of Haggar’s cruiser, and he’ll wake up screaming from this one too. Screaming because he is weak and pathetic and  _scared._

“Just leave me alone,” Keith says, muffled into his own forearms. 

“No,” Shiro says, “not until you talk to me.” Keith hears Shiro shifting but still doesn’t look up. “What were you  _thinking_? You could have died, Keith. And then where would we be? We need you to form Voltron!” 

Shiro’s question goes through Keith like a lance. Of course that’s all this is about, he thinks. Of course. The mission comes before everything else. Keith steels himself with a deep breath and looks up from his arms. “If that’s all,” Keith says, carefully keeping his voice steady, “I’d like to get dressed now.” 

Shiro looks stricken. “No, wait, that’s not what I–” 

“Just go, Shiro,” Keith says, allowing the exhaustion to creep into his voice. Shiro looks like he wants to say something else but eventually he nods, and gets up off the floor. 

“I’ll see you in the briefing room,” Shiro says, and lets himself out. 

Keith holds out until the door snicks shut behind Shiro’s retreating footsteps before he lashes out, driving his fist into the floor beside him. Pain rockets up his arm, nerves sizzling and leaving him breathless. Keith pulls his hand to his chest, cradling his fist next to his heart. After everything, he’d thought–well, he thought wrong, clearly.


	17. 58) things you were afraid to say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Post-Kerboros, pre-series. Angst. Keith-centric.

Keith doesn’t have a radio in the desert, and he’s glad of it. He still hears enough of the tragedy porn on his infrequent trips into town. It’s been nearly six months since mission failure, and Kerberos speculation still holds Platt City in it’s grip. 

Immediately following the declaration of pilot error, but before Keith’s falling out with the Garrison, he’d been hounded by one of the local reporters. He knows they’d tried to get a statement out of everyone, but Keith had felt especially singled out, as this reporter had been the one to get the picture of he and Shiro standing together at the announcement of Shiro’s successful candidacy for piloting the mission. 

“Miranda Reyes,” she’d said, sticking her hand out for him to shake, across the diner table. Keith had come into town to get away from prying eyes in the barracks, tired of being on base and under scrutiny from all corners. Keith had taken her hand, gingerly, trying to telegraph his disinterest without rudeness. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about Takashi Shirogane, if that’s alright?” 

Keith had fumbled over his answers, stuck on hearing Shiro’s name in this woman’s voice, stuck on the fact that she kept talking about him in the past-tense.  The article in the paper the next day had been a special sort of unkind, and Keith had blamed himself. 

Thinking back, Keith decides that was when the spiral started. Other cadets had gotten a hold of the paper, with it’s damning headline and the shot of Keith taken while he was serving time in the detention centre and the reporters bias about troubled kids on full display in the article’s text. Keith was clearly the reason Shiro hadn’t been focused enough to handle the pressures of the mission, she’d written, and seeing it in clear, black type had sent Keith into a tailspin of self-loathing that he’d never really pulled out of. 

Six months later, the simmering rage has mostly died for lack of an outlet, but beneath it, sleeps something almost worse. All the feelings Keith had buried, all the desperate hope he couldn’t help but feel, all the things he’d been too afraid to tell Shiro when he’d had the chance. The last time he’d seen Shiro had been just before he’d gone into quarantine ahead of the mission. 

“Be safe,” Keith had said, muffled against Shiro’s chest. He’d swallowed back everything else, not wanting to send Shiro into space with the burden of confessed feelings and so sure in his knowledge that Shiro would come back to him.  

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Shiro had said. His arms around Keith had felt like iron bands, like they might be the only thing holding Keith together, like if Shiro had let go, Keith might have floated into space with him. 

Keith shakes off the memory and turns his attention back to the pieces of the hoverbike’s gear box he has spread out in front of him on the workbench. He’s got to put this back together before it gets too dark to see. He’s got to stop thinking about Shiro, alone out there in the dark, about the way an explosion in space is just air and quickly snuffed flames, about how he hopes, in vain, that it was that and not some slow suffocation in a tin can spiraling into the void. 

Hot tears blur Keith’s vision, and he swipes angrily at his eyes, gritting his teeth against the welling tide of grief in his chest. It swamps him anyway, leaving Keith gripping the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles go white. Keith feels like he’s being carved open again, the way he was the day he watched the words ‘Mission Failure’ flash across the view screens in the mess hall, like his insides are being scooped out and left all over the floor at his feet. 

“Shiro,” he whispers, voice wet and thick and ragged. “You said you’d come back.” 


	18. 22) things you said after it was over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaith. Break ups.

The sky is a spill of stars outside the open hangar door. James leans against the wall just inside the hangar, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. He scuffs his boots against the floor. James sighs, and tips his head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling.

“Jamie?” Keith’s voice is low, but it carries in the shadows as Keith steps around the landing gear of one of the Ares jets, coming into view. Moonlight becomes him, James thinks, and then shakes his head at his own nonsense. Keith’s skin is luminous in the pale glow, and the wash of stars in the sky seems to reflect in his eyes.

“Hey,” James says, pushing off the wall. Keith’s mouth quirks up, not quite a smile, but those have always been hard to come by.

“You wanted to talk?” Keith asks, and James nods. He heads out of the hangar. Keith falls into step beside him. James doesn’t know where they’re headed exactly, so he lets his feet carry them, and Keith follows, silent. 

They walk out towards one of the older unpaved airstrips, heading out towards the proper desert. Neither talk on the way, and James buries his desire to fill the silence underneath the sound of his boots in the dirt. He can feel Keith’s eyes on him when he comes to a stop at the edge of the tarmac. 

“I used to come out here to think,” James says, and Keith steps up beside him. James can feel the heat of Keith’s body.

“I preferred the roof,” Keith says. “It was closer to the sky.” 

“Yeah,” James agrees, and then sidesteps and turns so he can face Keith. Keith’s worrying his bottom lip, and his eyes slide away from James’. James takes a deep breath, screwing his meager courage to his spine. Keith beats him to it. 

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” Keith’s voice is low, and his brows furrow in something like apology. “I’m sorry Jamie, but I–well. There’s someone else.” 

Someone else. Someone  _else_. Of course there’s someone else. There’s always been someone else. James knew that going in to this whatever-the-fuck arrangement he and Keith have. That someone else is broad-shouldered, square-jawed and the only man Keith’s ever looked at with such soft fondness that it had made James’ stomach twist in vivid green jealousy. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith repeats. He holds one arm across his body, hand gripping the elbow of the other one. Keith’s shoulders curl forward, as if he is trying to protect himself, even though he’s the one doing the breaking up.  

“It’s okay,” James says, and then huffs a laugh. “I was coming out here to tell you the same thing. Well, not the ‘someone else’ part–because there isn’t. Someone else, I mean.” James reaches up to rub the back of his neck, and then lets his hand fall to hang at his side. “I hope–I hope he makes you happy,” James says, injecting some brightness into his voice. 

Keith frowns. “You were going to break up with me?”

“Well, I–” James starts, looking down and away from Keith’s piercing gaze. James takes a minute to gather his thoughts, feeling the hot desert wind blowing through his hair. “Yes,” he says finally, looking back up at Keith. “Yes, I was. Because I deserve better than someone who looks at someone else the way I want him to look at me.” 

“Oh,” Keith says, eyes wide and lovely, and James thinks he will take this one last image of Keith with him when he turns to go back to the hangar. 

“I’ll see you around, Keith,” James says, and turns to go. 


	19. 52) things you said with my lips on your neck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Pre-smut.

“Gonna fuck you.” Keith’s voice is slurred, and his teeth scrape against Shiro’s skin, just under his ear. Shiro doesn’t suppress the way the words make him shudder, and tightens his grip on Keith’s upper arms.

There’s no space between them. Keith is wrapped around Shiro, his thigh thrust between Shiro’s, and Shiro rocking down onto it, the friction just this side of maddeningly not enough. 

“Yeah?” Shiro asks, and he feels Keith nod into his neck. “How’re you gonna manage that?” Shiro shifts, and Keith pushes back, keeping him from rolling them over. 

“You’ll see,” Keith says, and lifts his head. He slides one hand along Shiro’s jaw, before he slots their mouths together. Heat pools between them. Shiro shifts, and Keith follows through, leaning into Shiro and pushing over onto his back. Shiro goes willingly, hands sliding down to Keith’s waist, bunching up the bottom of his shirt to get at the skin beneath it. 

Shiro’s metal fingers are cold, but the flesh ones on the other side are hotter than a brand and Keith hisses at the contrast. Shiro’s hips buck when Keith bites down on his bottom lip and Keith grinds down to meet him. They both gasp at the friction and the kiss breaks. 

Keith looks down at Shiro. A flush rides high on Shiro’s cheeks, and his eyes have darkened to a colour Keith associates with the ozone feel of an imminent storm. Shiro’s lips are parted, and every time he breathes, he rocks up against Keith. The contact makes darts of heat zing through Keith’s gut. 

“You’re still wearing a lot of clothes for someone who was gonna fuck me,” Shiro says, flesh hand flexing around Keith’s hip, to hold him steady where Shiro wants him. 

“Guess I’ll have to fix that,” Keith says, the slow bloom of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. He leans up and back, tugging his shirt up and off as he does. His tags jingle on their chain as they resettle against his chest. “Your turn,” he says to Shiro, cocking an eyebrow in challenge. 

The rest of the undressing is done in an anticipatory hush, bare skin hunted by fingers and mapped by searching mouths. Keith’s teeth scrape against Shiro’s neck again, and Shiro slides his hand into Keith’s hair, palm flat against his scalp and then tightening into a fist. Keith shudders, full-body and Shiro pulls him up for a kiss. 

It’s like lightning hitting dry grass. 


	20. 20) things you said that I wasn’t meant to hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Pre-kerb pining!Keith, plus Adam/Shiro having a fight.

The door to Adam and Shiro’s quarters is propped open, as usual. This part of the barracks has weird air flow and both Shiro and Adam routinely leave the door pushed open to keep their quarters from turning into a swamp. Keith slows his pace, deliberately taking his time.  The voices from down the corridor get clearer as he approaches.

“Adam, please,” Shiro’s saying, “you’re being ridiculous.” There’s a cajoling tone in Shiro’s voice. Keith recognizes it from early morning drills before their blood is moving and he and the rest of the cadets in his flight are sluggish.

“Am I, Shiro?” Adam’s voice is laced with suppressed fury.

“You know you are,” Shiro says.

Keith isn’t sure what they’re fighting about, but it twists his stomach anyway and he decides he’ll have to interrupt and let them know that anyone could hear them. He is about to hurry his pace when Adam speaks again; “I don’t know, Takashi, how could I? You spend all your free time with that delinquent cadet.”

They’re fighting about him? Keith’s blood runs cold and then hot, the flush prickling up the back of his neck. He really should turn around, or interrupt them, or something. He does none of those things and slows to a stop instead, just out of view of the open door.

“Keith is not a delinquent.” Shiro’s voice has gone too soft. It makes Keith think of the deceptively pretty spines on a cactus.

Adam presses on, heedless, “What are you doing taking him out into the desert all the time anyway? You know he came in as a pity case.”

Keith’s hackles rise. Just because he’s not a legacy like Adam or a star pilot like Shiro doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the right to be here. He will accept pity from no one.

“He’s not a pity case,” Shiro argues back. A burst of warmth blooms in Keith’s chest. “And I spend so much time with him because I was assigned to him as a mentor, to help him settle in and get used to life on base.”

“You stopped being assigned as his mentor over a year ago.”

“He’s my friend, Adam.” Shiro sounds tired. “Nothing more.”

_Nothing more_. The warm bloom in Keith’s chest withers.

“Your friend, eh? Your friend who you sneak off base with, who you break curfew for, who you filched the keys to LC Ryu’s hoverbike for? Tell me another one, Shiro, maybe this time I’ll believe you.”

“Adam,” Shiro’s voice is low with warning. “I don’t want to fight.”

“You don’t want to fight or you don’t want to fight about  _Keith_?”

“Neither,” Shiro says, sharp. Keith imagines Shiro’s eyebrows are drawing down, furrowing his brow.

“Well, where does that leave us then, Takashi?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro says, voice sort of muffled. Keith thinks Shiro has probably run his hands through his hair and then down his face.

“Be honest with me, Shiro. I deserve that, at least.”

“I’ve never lied to you,” Shiro protests.

“Not out loud,” Adam agrees.

“That’s not fair.”

“No,” Adam says, with enough force that Keith thinks he probably punctuated with his hand. Adam gestures when he lectures, Keith knows, because Keith sits three rows back in Adam’s History of Space Flight seminar on Tuesday afternoons. “No, Shiro, what’s not fair is what you’re doing with Keith.”

Keith’s heart climbs into his throat. What Shiro is doing with Keith? What are he and Shiro doing? They’re friends, and Shiro’s confirmed what Keith already thought, that that’s all Shiro thinks of him. Frankly, Keith never really thought there was ever a chance of anything else, after all, Shiro has Adam and Shiro loves Adam, Keith has heard about it enough times.

“What I’m doing with Keith? What are you talking about, Adam?”

“You know what I mean,” Adam says.

Shiro scoffs. “If you’re going to accuse me of something, accuse me, don’t wait for me to incriminate myself.”

There’s a long silence. Keith covers his mouth with his fist, breathing into his hand. All he can hear is the blood rushing in his own head. He either interrupts them now, or he gets caught when one of them storms out to cool off. There’s a rustle of fabric and Keith makes up his mind.

He pushes off the wall and makes his steps loud as he comes towards the door. He lifts a hand and raps his knuckles against the doorframe.

“Hey, Keith!” Shiro says, face brightening at Keith’s appearance. Adam says nothing, just gives Shiro a meaningful glance and continues pulling his jacket on.

Keith feels the undercurrent of tension between Adam and Shiro, knows he would even if he hadn’t overheard their argument. He chooses to dismiss it, focusing instead on Shiro, who is leaning against the kitchen island in a picture of practiced nonchalance. Adam leaves without another word.

“Are you free?” Keith asks, knowing the answer already. Shiro nods. “Was wondering if you wanted to see if you could beat me this time?”


	21. 27) things you said on the phone at 4 am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sheith. Drunk-dialing your ex at four am is never a good idea. Angst.

Shiro wakes up to the sound of his phone buzzing against the dark wood of his nightstand. He grabs for it without looking, and knocks his glasses off the edge and onto the floor. Shiro groans into his pillow, and his phone buzzes again, insistent.

“Okay,” he says, voice slurred from sleep. “Okay, hold on.”

His hand closes around the device and he draws his arm back into the cocoon of warmth beneath his duvet. It goes still just before he turns it over and Shiro sighs. The missed call notification flashes on his lock screen;

_Missed call from Keith, 0345_

Shiro blinks down at his phone. Why is Keith calling him at nearly four in the morning? Where is he calling from? A powerful spike of alarm brings Shiro to full wakefulness. Keith doesn’t call; he texted, he sent snaps, he left Shiro DMs with links to stupid tweets on Discord, but he never used to call before. Shiro’s mind helpfully supplies him with a whirlwind of catastrophe scenarios and Shiro grimaces, swiping his phone unlocked and calling Keith back.

Keith doesn’t pick up. His phone clicks over to voicemail after four rings and Shiro doesn’t bother leaving a message, just re-dials and reaches to turn the light on beside his bed. This time the phone goes to voicemail in the middle of a ring, which means Keith is alive enough to actively ignore Shiro’s call. Shiro sends him a text when he hangs up this time and drops his phone on his bed and reaches for a pair of sweats and the hoodie he took off before bed.

The phone buzzes again just as Shiro is tugging on a pair of socks and Shiro picks it up before the first set of vibrations has stopped.

“Keith!” Shiro says, a little more forcefully than intended and Keith giggles. Actually giggles. There’s so much noise in the background of Keith’s end; loud voices underscored by the thump of bass.

“Shiroooooooo,” Keith says, exuberant. A cheer goes up in the background of their call and Shiro sits down on his bed. There’s a sound like a door closing and then it’s quiet on Keith’s end. “Hey,” Keith says, voice soft.

“It’s four in the morning,” Shiro says. He tries to imbue his voice with sternness, but is waylaid by the yawn that cracks his jaw.

“Oh,” Keith answers, “sorry.” Shiro thinks he doesn’t sound very sorry.

“Did you need something?”

“Ah,” Keith hedges, and Shiro can see him rubbing the back of his neck like he does when he’s nervous.

“Keith, I have class at eight-thirty.”

“You do? Oh, shit, yeah, you do. I’m sorry, Shiro.” This time he does sound contrite and Shiro hums quietly in response. “I went to a party with Pidge’n’Lance,” Keith slurs, and then his voice drops into a conspiratorial whisper, “someone gave me three shots of tequila!”

“Do you need me to come get you?” Shiro asks, before he can tell himself not to.

“No, no, I’m fine. I’m in my Uber, we’re almost home.” Keith’s voice fades like he’s pulled his phone away from his mouth and Shiro hears a muffled conversation and then the slam of a car door. “I’m walking into my building right now, nothing to be worried about.”

“I’m glad you made it home safely,” Shiro says, listening as Keith fumbles with his keys and swears when he drops them.   

“I wanted to hear your voice,” Keith says, tone light. Shiro hears the ding of an elevator door closing. Then, “I miss you, Shiro. So much. I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes, when I think about you.”

Shiro thinks that being flayed alive would probably be less painful than this. “Keith,” he says, trying to get a handle on the conversation before Keith says something he’ll regret in the morning. “You need to drink some water and take an aspirin and go to bed.”

“Why’d you let me leave you, Shiro?” Keith’s voice is plaintive on the phone. “We were so good. What happened?”

“You tell me,” Shiro says. There’s silence for a long time, and then the chime of the elevator hitting Keith’s floor. Keith still doesn’t speak but Shiro can hear him moving along the hallway. He hears the turn of the lock on Keith’s door and then the bang of it shutting behind Keith.

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” Keith says, and he sounds a lot more sober than he did fifteen minutes ago when he’d picked up the phone. “I shouldn’t have called.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro says, suddenly desperate to keep Keith on the phone. He lets himself fall back onto his bed, and stares up at the water-stained ceiling of his dorm bedroom. “I don’t mind. It’s good to hear from you.”

“It’s nice to hear your voice too,” Keith says, warmth bleeding through.

There’s another silence, and Shiro thinks about filling it, but he hears Keith’s intake of breath and hopes Keith will speak instead. He doesn’t. Shiro chews on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from jumping in.

Keith sighs. “I’m going to go to sleep now,” he says, “thanks for checking up on me.”

“It’s no problem,” Shiro says, surprised at how steady his voice is. “Sleep well, Keith.”

“‘Night, Shiro,” Keith says and the line goes dead. Shiro lets his phone drop beside his head and breathes in, counts to four and lets it out in a long woosh of air before he sits up and pulls his hoodie off and shucks his sweats. He plugs his phone back in and turns off the light, rolls over and wills himself back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and chat with me about my fic on [tumblr](http://sequencefairy.tumblr.com) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic).


End file.
